


Hello (or something like it)

by captainparakeet



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, I need my closure, If you squint you can see sherstrade and shally and sherstrally, Lestrade is only referenced, S4-compliant (kinda), a thing between old friends, shally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainparakeet/pseuds/captainparakeet
Summary: A reunion with an old friend, long delayed.





	

It had been years since she stepped foot in Sussex. The last time, some six years ago, it had been for DI Holcombe, who went and got herself the barn wedding of her Pinterest dreams, all fading sun and soft-focus champagne shots, pale hills in the background. She wasn’t close with the woman, but Holcombe was one of her mentors, her elders, the few ladies in the force and fewer still who bothered to see and mentor her, and that has got to count for something.

The event was Holcombe’s unofficial retirement. She couldn’t miss a copper’s retirement no matter how much she disliked weddings. She ended up getting a little tipsier than she wanted – the free-flow cider was divine if heavier than it had any right to be for a twee party – and if she had to listen to Greg pouring his heart out about the woes of married life for the umpteenth time, well, she deserved a strong swig of something. The pastoral setting, with the birds and the water and the skies and the sheep set her teeth on edge. Postcard-pretty they may be, idyllic small towns were the perfect place to commit fucked-up crimes without anyone being the wiser and they never ceased to give her the heebie-jeebies. For all she knew, the perfectly trimmed grass beneath her feet absorbed its nutrients from rotting corpses no one had ever found. 

When her liquor-loosened tongue verbalised this thought to Dimmock he’d looked at her like she'd grown six heads, but she knew one person who'd happily nod along to her morbid ideas, back when shared cynicism and a pack of cheap cigarettes were all they needed to get along. It was kind of a funny joke, wasn't it, that she'd go to this quaint little town to see him, of all people. That the self-proclaimed sociopath cynic chose to retire, and retire here of all the extravagant places in the world he could afford, was a fact she still struggled with. She honestly thought he’d picked somewhere more…exciting.

Later, he’d quirked his mouth, hearing that. “Define exciting, Sally. A nice cup of murder every week?”

There was no venom in his voice. That was another surprising thing. It wasn’t that she came all the way to his doorstep to be a punching bag, but being pragmatic she expected some antagonism. The Sherlock she knew had no warm rounded corners to spare. Then again, everyone changed.

“That sounds decent, yeah. After breakfast, preferably."

 

* * *

 

 

When she found his cottage she'd marveled at it for a solid minute or two. The place was positively quaint, Miss Marple-ish. Red rooftop, yellow walls. Fading paint. Flowers.

Her first, second and third thoughts were: Sherlock ‘sentiments were for losers’ Holmes lived here now?

She couldn’t remember what went through her mind next. Perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of _are those actual geraniums_. Her mouth was still hanging open, stupidly, when he found her. He was dressed in one of those ridiculously expensive dressing gowns that cost more than her monthly salary.

He was thinner than she’d remembered him, but healthy nonetheless. He’d been doing an okay job looking after himself. Something in her chest loosened. It felt like relief. 

Silence. He started first. “Hello, Sally.” A bristling echo from the past, the opening salvo to their cruel ritual. Except, this time, it sounded different. If she dared, she’d say it sounded like an old friend.

She thought of saying, _Greg said I could find you here_ , or a cool, clipped  _Holmes_ , or something witty, something worth the miles she travelled. Instead, from her mouth, she heard a simple “hey”. She felt, for a moment, disarmed.

 

* * *

 

The sitting room was small, with too many pointy things to accidentally knock over. Books stacked into mismatched chairs. Stuff he must have hoarded from other places – an ancient, rusty bathtub attached to chemical apparatuses, old specimens in jars lining up above the fireplace, a vintage wooden chest with what looked like a shimmery costume peeking out of it. On top, lying haphazardly, were musical notes. His violin peeked from the edge of the sofa. There were cups of coffee, filled with dark brown liquid of varying levels of grossness. It was pure chaos...and comforting in its familiarity.

“Coffee? Tea? Pick your poison.” He stopped moving, assessed her wordlessly for a moment. It’s been a while since she remembered how it felt to be traced by those eyes, electric and unsettling. “Coffee, I suppose,” he decided. “Still black, no sugar, no cream?”

The spell broke. “I—that’d be lovely. Thanks. You don’t have to, but yeah.”

She wondered what factored into his conclusion. Her days-old eyebags, the tired lines around her eyes, the tell-tale of a caffeine addict? While he puttered in the kitchen she picked a spot on the sofa and sat gingerly. 

“I heard about the Waters case. It was thorough, meticulous work. Your promotion was well-deserved.”

“Thanks.” A pause. “I knew you were helping.” In the background, through bursts of rapid-fire texts between Sherlock and her good ol' boss. She needn’t be a genius to know who Greg’s mysterious texting buddy was. She just needed to know him, the way his face would light up at the sound of the phone chirping, the grin that made his face ten years younger while he struggled to keep pace with the barrage of messages coming every five seconds.

“Only with minor details. I needed a good distraction from wedding planning.”

The kettle whistled. “Did it surprise you?” he asked. The kitchen was dimly lit and she couldn’t see his face, but she knew what he was really asking. Did it surprise her, hearing the news that he was alive? Was she shocked, was she relieved, was she angry? Did she feel absolved?

“A little,” she said. But – “After, it felt like I knew it all along.”

She was looking out the window from her corner office when Greg called to pre-empt. Reporters might be coming in with questions soon. Hell, Daily Mail’s already asking them for comments over unconfirmed Sherlock sightings, a full day before he summoned Greg to the parking lot. There’d be a briefing to set up a press conference. A flurry of motion and whispers behind her, but everything was reduced to sharp clarity, to Greg’s next words. “And Sal? He changed. He went through a lot, I think. I mean, he—“

She picked up the plea. “I’m not going to be hard on him, Greg.”

In the end, they never got the chance to see each other. A promotion, the murder of a diplomat in Italy that sent her far from London for six months. Hearing about all the dramatic stuff going on in London, all the sad things, from millions of miles away, mostly from Greg. She never even got to meet the woman crazy enough to marry John Watson.

"I heard about Mary. I’m sorry.”

Silence. A wry smile. “It's as you said. Someday Sherlock Holmes will be standing over a dead body, and...”

She flinched. That was savage, throwing her words back like that, though not entirely undeserved. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, staring at her palms. 

“Not all of it,” he agreed. He set the cup and saucer on a low table in front of her and sat on a wingback chair next to the sofa, back straight. “But in small ways, yes. It is something, learning about guilt. The guilt of surviving.” He looked down at his cup. “I’ve been on the other side of that, without understanding its weight. I thought it was easier to be the survivor.”

She thought about the days, weeks after his 'death', all blurring into gray and apathy and numbness, going about each day like an automaton. Everything frozen – the air, her dreams, the ability to think of anything good about herself.

The coffee was hot and bitter, the way she liked it on a bracing London morning, stepping out of the warmth of her apartment into the open. “It wasn’t. But Sherlock?”

He looked up, tentative. “Yes?”

She swallowed. The room’s quiet prickled. “I’m sorry.”

“There was nothing to—“

“Yes, yes,” she cut him off. “I was only doing my job, a detective following the breadcrumbs. Regardless.”

He leaned forward to set his cup on the table. Buying time, eyes downcast. “I will ask you for the same thing — forgiveness,” he said, after a while. He made sure to look at her, she noticed, and he was earnest.

He smiled. She smiled. The air thawed. “So, Sally, what brought you here? Much as I appreciate a social visit from someone with a proper brain, I doubt you travelled so far after a night of Netflix and hangover just for chit-chats. A case, then. Tell me.” He got up, a gleam about his eyes. “I could use a good case. Oh, it better be a six or higher.”

"You’d like this one.” Fuck, it was convoluted. Where should she even start? “It was DI Whittlecombe – no, you never met her, she’s in Forgery. About six months ago she went to a charity garage sale and bought an oil painting, a still life, six peaches in a basket. Well, the MPD held an auction recently and she donated the thing. We called it ‘The Copper’s Peaches’ – it sounded funny, okay? – and invited a professional appraiser, just as a lark. I mean, people were donating jugs and glorified ashtrays, so it wasn’t as if it mattered—“

He was getting impatient. “Sally.”

“I’m getting there. We found another painting underneath it, and—“ she exhaled. “It wasn’t a painting. It was a message, a call for help. I looked up the address. It was an old folks’ home at Ravenscourt Gardens and yes, there was a gifted still life artist living there, an old lady named Ruby Neal, but she denied painting the piece and she said no, no one’s out to murder her and she knew self-defence, thank you very much. The staff were getting suspicious by then so I couldn’t do much but—“ she stopped. This was going to sound either really convincing or really stupid. Or both.

“But what?”

She leaned forward. “The house’s logo was fucking peaches.”

His mouth made a funny shape. “The logo was fornicating with peaches?”

“You know what I mean, Sherlock.”

He seemed to be considering something. “Your instinct tells you the woman is in danger.”

“I’ve got a pretty strong hunch.”

“Not your hunch. Your _instinct_ , Sally. Don’t undercut your own ability.”

“Yeah, well, po-tah-to, po-tay-to.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

She didn’t say: there was sentiment too. Ruby, with her gray, too-clever eyes and stiff upper lips and pince-nez, with her warm brown skin and calloused hands, reminded her of Aunt Nelly, whose currency was coded affection but raised her good.  

“And no one in the precinct is taking this seriously.”

She shrugged. “It was a garage sale painting. Could’ve been an over-imaginative prank. Homicide is overworked as it is.” She rubbed her eyes, feeling suddenly tired.

He fixed his eyes on her. “But you don’t think so?”

“No,” she said. _By the pricking of my thumb_ – she recalled the unease, the feeling that those eyes were desperate to say something to her, that the staff was a little too eager to send her away. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, then,” he smiled. A twinkle in his eyes. “I suppose a trip to London is imminent.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty happy with the conclusion of S4 but if I do have one regret it's that Sally never has the chance to meet the Sherlock we saw in S3/4. I'd like to think if they ever meet again they'd find a way to reconnect, each having grown and re-shaped by the years apart. 
> 
> The Sussex thing. This was written around 4x01 and at the time Sherlock exiling himself in Sussex was a very likely possibility. I guess in this particular instance the show gave me more than I dared hope for.
> 
> The case at the end is a play on The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, because Violet Hunter is great and in another universe where this show chose to adapt the story into an episode, I want Sally to take on her role.


End file.
